Tuesday, April 29, 2014

“So is LIFE the same
for me sitting here in my small room or you in a family home or on a yacht or
in a hovel?What really is LIFE?”

Frederich Buechner
encourages us to listen to our life and
defines life as “being WITH.”So is it the icon onmy wall that I am with? the books gathering dust on my desk? the children you may have created? the clock ticking away next to the land
telephone and the stereo? or is LIFE the wide screen TV or the fragrances
wafting from the kitchen stove? Or perhaps I
am with the bouquet of roses on themantel or the sweet little kitten asking for food or the five letters in
this

morning’s mail asking for funds to serve a
worthy cause.

YES, all of these are
LIFE, my LIFE, part of the mystery we
call LIFE because that is one way we can distinguish being alive from being
dead. “LIFE isbeing with,” says Buechner,“all of this is in it withus.We’re all in it
together.Life is it.Life is with.”He goes on to tell of a learned lecturer and theologian who, after
giving his thoughts on the topic of miracles,
was asked by one of his audience to give a specific
example of one such miracle. His answer was: “There is only one
miracle.It is LIFE.”Then he asked a series of probing questions:

Have
you wept at anything during the last year?

Has your heart beat faster at the
sight of young beauty?

Have you thought seriously of the fact
that someday you are going to die?

More often than not, do you really
listen when people are speaking to you instead of

just waiting for
your turn to speak?

Is there anybody you know in whose
place you would volunteer to be if you had to suffer

in doing so?

If your answer to all
or most of these questions is NO, the chances are that you’re dead.”

WOW!“LIFE is with.We’re all in it together or it in us.Life is it.Life is with.
. . “

And God, I ask
myself?Yes, God is with us, nomatter what!

Can we be with one
another and with all else that is?That’s the bigger question.

Tuesday, April 22, 2014

When it comes to the subject of "change" we humans are an interesting lot. We can vary from one end of the spectrum to the other. Some embrace change with excitement and anticipation, some are doubtful and hesitant, and some are completely resistant to change - "not me, Lord!". I am embarrassed to admit that I more often than not fit in this last group.

At Holy Thursday Eucharist this year we had the reading of the story of the Last Supper from John's Gospel (Jn 13:1 - 15) which focuses on Jesus washing the feet of his disciples and not the Passover meal which the other three evangelists highlight in their Gospel of the Last Supper.

For years the tradition here at Saint Benedict was that twelve Sisters and guests would sign up ahead of Holy Thursday to have their feet washed by the Prioress at Holy Thursday Eucharist. This year we made a big change, one could say a complete 180 degree turn around: rather than only the Prioress washing feet we chose to emphasize Jesus' words "As I have done for you, you also must do." As Sister Mary Weidner who gave the homily that evening told us: "Here, rich and poor, saint and sinner, educated and un-schooled, old and young, men and women - are all equal members of the one body. There are no walls, no separations, no first place and last place here." The logistics of being prepared to wash many feet that evening were thoroughly planned, every detail attended to. Several options were possible: one could come forward and have one's feet washed by the person ahead of you and you could wash the feet of the person after you. Or, if you had difficulty rising from the floor or from a small stool, then a sister was available to wash the feet of the person coming after you. However, nothing was more important that evening than experiencing "divine courtesy, the caress of Jesus, the absurdity of love - because our hearts have reasons that reason does not know." (Mary Weidner, OSB)

There were tender and touching moments during the foot washing in our chapel last Thurday. In case we were tempted to be distracted from the purpose of our gathering together that evening, Sister Mary reminded us in her homily that "Eucharist and foot-washing go together . . . The AMEN we say when receiving Eucharist is probably the most important act of faith that we make. That AMEN is essentially a commitment to be Eucharist, to be present, to be involved, to be of service, to break our bodies and pour out our blood for the life of others."

Tuesday, April 15, 2014

For the last several months I’ve been in a questioning mode that
always starts with the same phrase, “What
if…”It’s been going on for so long now that I’m
wondering if it’s just an evolving thought-pattern that I might well have to learn
to live with.My most recent “What if…” is this: "What if I
have a certain covert capacity for violence wired into my being?" I get glimpses
of it when I hear the edginess in my voice tone when one of my friends, who
lives with altered hearing, requests that I repeat for the second time what I
just said. Is it their fault that they have developed hearing loss?All the gentleness I thought was evolving
within mesuddenly evaporates and discloses the unwelcome face of some unnamed
inner violence.My friend’s simple
invitation to slow down my speech, face her and slightly increase my voice
volume so she can decipher my sentences, requires more patience than I am
capable of at that moment. Aha, impatience, also known as the inability to give
another the respectful time/space that they need/deserve, raises into consciousness the red flag of personal, unrelinquished
violent thinking/acting,

According to Eknath Easwaran, Words to Live By, the
Sanskrit word for violence is
himsa.The word for nonviolence is ahimsa,
a state in which every trace of violence is removed.What remains in this nonviolent state is our
natural consciousness: pure love.Violence,
himsa, expresses itself in three
different ways: 1) in our deeds; 2) in our words; and 3) in our thoughts. Most
of what we call violence is in the form of action.So it is with our actions that nonviolence, ahisma, naturally begins. But as long as
our minds harbor violent, himsa,
thoughts, violence will find its way somehow into our speech and behavior.

I’m especially ruminating on these personal violent-actions during this Christian time of Holy Week.I don’t exactly like what these ruminations
are disclosing to me.

Thursday, April 10, 2014

Our
sisters in the early years of the 20th century had a unique
challenge and opportunity:how to build
a chapel for our monastery that would be beautiful and serviceable into the
future.How they did that is the story
of the exhibit, Sacred Heart Chapel, God’s Home Among Us, 1914-2014, presently
open in Haehn Museum.

Actually
there are two distinct parts of the Chapel’s history—1914-1980; 1980 to the
present.Both are related to liturgical
practices of the time. Both are told through artifacts and photos. For
instance, one example from the earlier years is the expansive elevated
sanctuary floor and decorative altar; from the later years, the placement of
the altar under the dome with pews for the assembly around it.A few of the artifacts to see in the exhibit
are the choir stall of the prioress, the capital of a pillar, samples of
various marble, a number of the many angels in the original Chapel; and photos
of the assembly in worship and gatherings in the renovated and new sacred
spaces.

The
visitor also learns of the decision in the 1910s to use only authentic
materials—“If it says it is stone, it is stone” Community Chronicles.One cannot but be touched by the lasting
beauty that endures. The majesty of the dome, the grandeur of the marble and
granite columns, the grace of the enveloping arches—all remain a significant
part of the present Chapel, as do some 200 angel cherub heads on the
capitals.It is comforting to know that
these cherubs, all with mouths open in song, have been with us for 100 years,
and will continue to be silent partners in worship into the future.

Haehn
Museum is located in the Art and Heritage Place at our monastery.The exhibit will be open until December 23,
2014.

Dolores
Super, OSB

Official opening of the exhibit - April 27 at 2 pmVisitors welcome to preview the exhibit now

Tuesday, April 8, 2014

Lectio divina, the Benedictine practice of prayerful, sacred reading takes many forms. If you like questions that have more than a yes/no answer .
. .if you love nature, children, and poetry . . . if you walk slowly and
gratefully through our wondrous world, you can find God speaking all around us.

I recently experienced God speaking both in words and pictures through Joan Hutson's questions and illustrations in her book, Who says “Twinkle” to the Evening Stars . Listen
to the questions she asks of children (or full-of-wonder adults) as she brings
a profound message to their/our searching minds and heart:

Who says to
the morning sun “Rise, now, night is done . . .”

Who says
“Bloom” to the flowers here and there, and watches over them with loving care . . .

Tuesday, April 1, 2014

We have had some different light bulbs (energy saving, I believe) put into the Oratory and, I think, Sacred Heart Chapel and the Gathering Place. Personally, I'm most conscious of the ones in the Oratory because they're not as bright as the old ones and I'm conscious that there are some areas that now look quite dark. Lighting is an interesting issue in the Oratory. It is, for instance, very difficult to get good photographs there without importing special equipment. And, of course, that in itself could be a problem during services because we wouldn't want anything that distracted from the prayer which brings us there, however much we might want to capture the moment.

Anyway, practical issues aside, the appearance of the new, slightly dimmer lights, led me into something of a meditation. It made me think about how much we depend on light in the physical world: to see, to be able to appreciate the environment around us, to get about, to make plants grow. If we depend on light in the physical world, how much more do we depend on light, in the metaphorical sense, to illumine and help our spiritual lives to grow?

It's so easy to let the inner light grow dim. Energy saving light bulbs are a good in the world because, yes, they save energy and thus protect the environment! But energy saving on the internal illumination is not necessarily a good when it means that we make ourselves less open to the light of Christ and the light of the Gospels because we can't be bothered; it's too hard; it takes too much energy. Letting the light in means being willing to do whatever God asks of us, whatever it costs. It means being willing, as Jesus did, "to lay down His life for His friends."

So, I'm praying that as I continue along the Lenten path, which can sometimes seem dark, that I stay alert and allow God's light to penetrate my inner darkness. I'm praying for the grace and courage to respond positively to whatever that demands of me. Finally, I'm trying to help myself do that by straining to glimpse the light of Easter which Christ carries ahead of me.

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This blog is maintained by a group of Sisters at Saint Benedict's Monastery in St. Joseph, Minnesota. We try to post weekly and often succeed at that.
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